Nattier News August 2014

Our family and all of our bags have arrived safely in Togo!!  Thank you all for your prayers.  It's been 1 week today, and we are finally starting to get over jet lag. 

The kids have found lots of friends here to play with.  They have been chasing lizards, playing soccer, and attended a birthday party this week.  The older two started school Thursday.  My mom has been a huge help, because Natasha and I have both been busy at the hospital. 

The hospital and clinics have been booming, and the wards were completely full until yesterday afternoon.  It's busier than I remember from our trip three years ago.  The full time general Surgeon here, Dr. Eric Miller has fixed 4 femur fractures with Sign nails just this week.  I was able to help with two, and hopefully I will be proficient at this procedure by the time I leave. 

While the medical interventions do help to improve the lives of most, the stark realities of poor preventive healthcare and people presenting very late is everywhere.  As a result, one of the other short termers relayed, he has had at least 1 person die every day for the two weeks he has been here.  Almost everyone sees death all around.  One patient's brother relayed that this reality helped him make the decision to place his faith in Christ!

Ebola has still not entered Togo or it's neighbor's borders.  However, there is lots of false information going around on the radio.  One of these myths is that drinking hot salt water with onions may somehow prevent Ebola.  Several patients have come in sick from trying this home remedy.  Our chief of staff had educational meetings with the  hospital staff this week to try dispel these myths.  Please continue to pray for the affected countries, and the rest of West Africa during this Ebola epidemic.

The weather here has been very nice.  It's actually been unseasonably cool!  Highs in the low 80s, lows in the 60s with mist or rain every other day or so.  I still feel like it's hot in the hospital and operating room though it could certainly be worse. 

Today it's cool and raining.  In this picture you can see the mountain in the background has clouds and mist around the top of it.  In the front of the screen is a small termite hill.  There are some 3 and 4 times this tall around the area.    In the middle is the newest guesthouse.  We are staying in one that is very similar. 

Many of you have asked what we will be eating here in Togo.  This was our Friday night cuisine, Pizza.  The kitchen staff here are amazing cooks.  We do get some Togolese cuisine mixed in as well. 

There are a lot of teammates traveling for the meetings starting Monday - Wednesday August 25-27.  Please be in prayer for safe traveling and for a productive meeting.  It's very exciting to have so many teammates together and we want to seek God's direction for the medical ministries in Togo.  Please pray for wisdom and unity to be gained during our time together.

The day after the meeting we will be traveling to Mango.  Please pray for us to make the most of the 5 days we have there.  We are excited tell you all about Mango, our future home, very soon. 

We are so grateful for your continued partnership!

Nattier News July 2014

Will the current Ebola epidemic effect your upcoming trip to Togo?  This has been a common question we have received lately.  I will address this question, but first let me update you on our past month.  

It's now been two weeks since I separated from the USAF.  This has a lot of implications.  The most obvious, we no longer have the many benefits of military service like income, great health insurance, and amazing colleagues!  However, this also gives us a lot more flexibility and we are now able to travel to Togo.  We are planning to leave in less than 1 week.  Another implication is we have moved.  Where is complicated, but currently we are staying with family and friends until we leave for Togo.  When we return we will be living and working in Lafayette, Indiana as we make the remainder of the preparations to serve in Togo long term. 

This past week we were in Harrisburg, PA, ABWE's home office, for a very good training on Church planting, called EMC.  It was great and helped us think through what a church would look like in Mango, Togo.  In case you wondered, it would probably look different than what we typically think of when we look at our own church.  We would love to tell you more, so please call or email us with any questions you may have in this area!

Now to our current trip.  I attached a map of Togo, to show the cities where we will be traveling.  We are flying into Lome the capitol of Togo.  From there we will be traveling to Tsiko, where the current ABWE hospital, HBB, is located.  We will be staying there for the majority of our trip.  Mid way through our trip will be a strategy meeting to discuss some of the questions about what the work in Togo will look like in the coming years, and we are excited to meet many of or teammates and learn about a lot about the current work.  After the meeting we will be traveling to Mango our future home.  We will be spending about 1week there.  This will be our first glimpse of Mango in person.  We will also get to see the progress in the hospital which is scheduled to open January 2014.  We are scheduled to be in Togo for 7 weeks total.

 

Now back to Ebola, let me start by letting you know Togo is in West Africa.  Its still separated by two countries and about 800 miles from Liberia.  However, there was a passenger from Liberia who stopped in Lome, Togo before later getting off in Nigeria, where he died of Ebola.  This raises the possibility that someone on the plane may have been exposed to Ebola, got off the plane in Togo, and could develop the disease.  In fact, the team there is preparing for just that scenario. 

So how do we deal with this scenario.  Honestly, our initial reaction was fear.  Why?  Well we feared for the safety of ourselves, our children, and parents who we are going with us.  Our next reaction was to ponder the various scenarios, and based on this try to calculate the risk involved.  Was this the right way to react?

Honestly, I don't think so, and it's been a great test for us that will be invaluable in the future.  You might wonder what I think was wrong.  Was it Ok to have fear?  Yes, that's a natural response, and I don't think it's avoidable. So what was wrong.....   How should I deal differently with fear and tough decisions when they arise in the future?

My first reaction should have been to ask for God's help through prayer, reading scripture and seeking wise counsel.  I believe that even in all of the earthly knowledge that I may gain or possess, my creator has infinitely more wisdom than me or any man on this earth.  Job 38:4 gives God's response to Job's questions: "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?"  This verse and the rest of the chapter gives us but a glimpse of the difference in our knowledge vs the wisdom of our all knowing God. Recently I've been praying for wisdom to make the right decision on whether to cancel our trip or to go. 

 In the past few weeks prior to learning about the risk of Ebola in Togo, I read Risk is Right: Better to Lose Your Life Than to Waste It by John Piper.  If anyone is interested it's very short and very profound.  I've started doing his daily devotional on desiring God.  Yesterday the title of the devotion was Afraid of Death No More.  Its based on Hebrews 2:14-15 and discussed how Jesus has destroyed the power of death, and can "deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery."  In reality, I was scared of the possibility that one of my family members could die of Ebola.  I was afraid of the possibility of death.  Today the verse was 1 Corinthians 6:20, "For you were bought with a price.  So glorify God in your body."  The way we live in our body should glorify God in all we do. 

Through all of this, God has once again amazed me!  Phillipians 4:6-7 says don't be anxious but pray about everything and the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard our hearts and minds.  In the past few days, we now have peace that at this point we are to continue on our trip to Togo.  To some this might not make sense.  My answer to this, it makes perfect sense to follow an all knowing God wherever he leads.  In case any of you are really worried about us, the risk of getting Ebola is probably extremely low.  Only God knows what that risk is, and at this point we feel he wants us to go!

Please pray for us and our trip.  Please pray that we would continue to rely on God for guidance in all that we do.  Please pray for our family's safety.  Please pray that the meeting in Togo would be led by God.  Please pray for our trip to Mango that we would be able to gather important information to prepare to return in the future.

Thank you all for your partnership through prayer and support!